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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400822">A Waltz for Changing Hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anam_Writes/pseuds/Anam_Writes'>Anam_Writes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dancing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Post-Time Skip, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Slow Dancing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:01:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anam_Writes/pseuds/Anam_Writes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Claude and Byleth share a dance to a song they've heard before. </p>
<p>...</p>
<p>“It’s all changed,” she told him. Her eyes cast down to her scuffed boots. It was them she spoke to next. “It’s all for the worse.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” Claude’s brow raised, not incredulous or asking. It was a practiced motion, the kind she saw him use before to make voices stammer and words halt. It was his habit when he heard something he had not wanted to. “Well, I don’t think that’s true at all.”</p>
<p>“Show me one thing, then,” Byleth did not mean the words to come out as such a plea. “Show me just one thing that hasn’t changed.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Claudeleth Zine</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Waltz for Changing Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Woof! So this has been a long time coming! </p>
<p>This is the first piece for the first zine I've ever been in (hooray) and I'm really excited I get to share it with all of you. </p>
<p>Because it's kinda a special piece to me, I also commissioned art for it by the incredibly talented - and generally lovely human being - <a href="http://www.artbypeluso.com/">Michelle Peluso</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/pelusoart">@pelusoart</a> on twitter. </p>
<p>I hope you guys enjoy!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Garreg Mach, the crumbling giant sleeping atop a mountain, was less familiar to Byleth than it had been before. The structure wept rubble onto the valley below, the interval sliding of old stone down into town leaving the place uninhabitable to all but the bravest, dumbest or perhaps most desperate. Windows that used to paint the light as it hit the floor in abstractions of history and  Holy text were now shattered. Only the blazing sun hit Byleth’s face now as she walked through the abandoned chapel. She had to blink away the welling tears it brought forth with its sting. And before her, where Sothis once stood, in all the grace Rhea’s fictions could grant, was only collapsed bits of statue, ceiling, and gatherings of ash.</p>
<p>“The Knights are making swift progress under Hilda’s supervision,” Claude assured her. He spoke as though he’d been walking amicably with her all this way. </p>
<p>In truth she only knew the Duke was there just then. She smiled. To think she’d considered he might have lost his talent for all things covert, what with the growth of his stature, the broadening of the lean boy who was so adept at stealth. She looked over her shoulder and eyed the way the sun bounced off the gold pauldron and bobbles adorning his person. She would think they would have made a noise. </p>
<p>But no, Claude was ever the master of scheming. If he could not stay hidden even in accessories, layers of muscle and heeled boots then he’d not have much claim to that mastery. </p>
<p>“Truly,” his voice softened when she did not respond. “Hilda has a talent for delegation and the Knights of Seiros are devoted to you and all you represent. Garreg Mach will recover.”</p>
<p>“I was not concerned with that,” Byleth said, turning back towards the piles of decay. </p>
<p>“I see,” and she wondered if he did. </p>
<p>She could feel his eyes on her back, hear the steps he took towards her. She knew she could feel him, hear him, only because he wanted it so. She had woken as though from a dream to Duke Claude von Riegan, a more deliberate man than she’d ever known him to be. </p>
<p>No, that wasn’t right. He’d been exacting before in what he chose to keep to himself, which was most everything. So what made the echoing of his heel against the floor pluck so at the tender nerves of her spine, shaking like his bowstring?</p>
<p>“It must all be such a shock to you,” his hand came to rest at her back, steady and firm between the blades of her shoulder. She turned to see him standing beside her. His dark lashes fluttered under the intensity of the sun’s light and his green eyes reflected depth as she’d seen boundless oceans do. “We’re all here to help however we can.”</p>
<p>It was funny; she’d heard much the same proclamation from all her other protégés. Raphael had called to her from across the dining hall to say as much. Leonie had taken her aside in the training arena to impart the message. Lorenz and Hilda had also assured her of the Golden Deer’s willingness to come to her aid should she require even a finger lifted. </p>
<p>Cyril, by far, had been the worst shock. When last she saw him the boy had not even come up to her shoulder. His eyes had been wide and earnest, hair always out of order and voice pitched to a key denoting his youth. She’d woken as though from a night’s sleep to find him her height, closer to her in years than her own best friend and resting his hand on her shoulder. </p>
<p>“Anything you need, just holler,” he said. “We’ll all come running.”</p>
<p>Had she fallen so that a child - who’d once clutched at her cloak to keep from being lost in a crowd before flushing bright red and insisting he was as adult as she - felt so protective of her?</p>
<p>“Thank you,” she made a valiant effort of turning up her lips for Claude, as she had for the others. “I know I can count on you all.”</p>
<p>It had been enough to placate the lords, ladies, soldiers and mages who had once looked to her for protection. Claude was not so easily satisfied. Then again, Claude never had needed much protection. </p>
<p>“You know you can,” he smirked, looking away from her and to the bits of ruin on the sanctuary floor. “But that’s not what you want.”</p>
<p>Byleth turned her head away. </p>
<p>It felt childish. She had not felt such an impulsive need to push much needed aid away since she was a child insisting she could hold her traveling pack without her father’s help. </p>
<p>She had woken from a five year sleep changed - and they were not entirely sure about the ‘how’ of it all. She was younger than her allies, less experienced in the continental warfare she’d have to contend with as she was with skirmishes between bands that were dwarfed by the forces at Claude’s command. </p>
<p>Or at Edelgard’s command, she thought. The forces of the Empire. </p>
<p>“It’s all changed,” she told him. Her eyes cast down to her scuffed boots. It was them she spoke to next. “It’s all for the worse.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” Claude’s brow raised, not incredulous or asking. It was a practiced motion, the kind she saw him use before to make voices stammer and words halt. It was his habit when he heard something he had not wanted to. “Well, I don’t think that’s true at all.”</p>
<p>“Show me one thing, then,” Byleth did not mean the words to come out as such a plea. “Show me just one thing that hasn’t changed.”</p>
<p>When she looked back up at him properly she gasped. </p>
<p>He smiled, really smiled. It met his eyes, crinkling at the corners. Something dewy and salted like Derdriu’s sea played in the deep green of his stare. She wondered where he had learned to do that, who had taught him. She could have sworn for a moment - in spite of war and death and grim days awaiting them - that he was happy. Truly, deeply happy. </p>
<p>He offered his hand - large, gloved and strong - to her. “Come with me, my friend.”</p>
<p>Byleth had never thought her hand such a dainty thing as when she placed it into the leather bound breadth of the Duke Riegan's careful grasp. </p>
<p>She was a Commander. She was a Captain's daughter. She had been a sword-for-hire all her life before that. Her fingers were calloused from their work at a hilt from a young age, her palms scarred with skin that had torn more than once in training and in battle. But they were small. No matter how many lives she had used these hands to snuff out that would not make them any bigger.</p>
<p>Claude held her hand like she was a lady in a painting, draped in silk dresses with intricate plaited hair, doe eyes and an air of purity about her. </p>
<p>That was wrong. </p>
<p>He was not such an admirer of the damsel. </p>
<p>Rather, the way Claude held her as he guided her out into the open air, across the bridge to the monastery's grounds, it brought to mind something else. Something that made her cheeks burn in a way she hoped Claude would blame on the chilly mountain winds. It reminded her, for the first time since she was a child, what it was to be cherished. </p>
<p>The wink he shot over his shoulder as they entered the reception hall - no less a ruin than the body of the Church - only confirmed the connection. </p>
<p>"Do you remember the ball before the world started falling apart?" Claude asked.</p>
<p>He had held her hand like this then too. </p>
<p>They'd both been so optimistic. Mystery was afoot but they had lost no one, sacrificed nothing. He had been her first friend - her best friend - taking her from her hangings on the wall to dance. </p>
<p>The tables and chairs had been stowed away outside the hall, just as now they were stacked - mostly broken, waiting to be fixed - along the border of the space. The fire had lent a sophisticated kind of dimness to the night as the future leaders of Fódlan mingled, still unaware that one day they'd be ending each other's lives at the whims of their nations. </p>
<p>Byleth wondered briefly how many of them, besides her Golden Deer, yet lived. How many had fallen to this war? </p>
<p>A squeeze to her fingers and the falling of Claude's hand from hers tore her from those thoughts. </p>
<p>They stood together in the centre of the reception hall. Overgrown vines fragmented the light from the windows; through them, only a veil of sunlight washed the room in dim gold. Dirt and dust covered the scratched and broken tile that had once formed clean, intricate geometric patterns on the floor. </p>
<p>"I still can’t claim to be a master of these noble dances," he admitted to her, voice a soft reverbing timbre in the large empty space. His bow was shallow but his head hung low, that loose strand of hair he could never quite tame swayed above his brow. "But I'd be grateful if the lady would honour me with a waltz."</p>
<p>Once she'd have expected his voice to raise several octaves. For him to turn his nose up while he said it, flutter his lashes and pretend he was Lorenz hunting for a wife. As he offered his left hand up to take the lead she saw instead an earnestness in mockery’s place.  </p>
<p>Alone with him in the quiet, the room bathed in old memories, she could not refuse him. She could not even bring herself to regret that fact. Not when he raised his head at the light touch of her fingers on his, when he smiled warmly, when he pulled her into the circle of his arms by her waist.</p>
<p>Drawn in snug against him - closer than she remembered the waltz calling for - she went in step where his hand at her back guided her. She blinked away the light bouncing off the gold of his pauldron where her left hand laid. The only relief to be found from the sparks was in the tempered heat of Claude’s eyes. </p>
<p>The shuffle and scrape of their boots on dull marble - shifting dirt and dust beneath their feet to rise in clouds along their path - echoed through the hall. She had not remembered their dance followed by so stark a sound. </p>
<p>But soon, without even the prompting of parted lips, Claude came in closer. Byleth found it natural, maybe even instinctive, to curl into his chest, rest her forehead on his shoulder and listen as he hummed to her in deep, gentle tones. </p>
<p>This song.</p>
<p>She had heard it only once before.</p>
<p>Byleth smiled, listening. </p>
<p>She did not even mark how he had ceased to turn them about the room, how they swayed in a pattern that could only barely be called a dance and certainly not a waltz. He brought their joined hands to clasp over his heart, the beat a steady duet with the humming of his song. </p>
<p>When the song finished - or rather, when Claude’s voice dropped off and he could recall no more of the melody - they stilled.</p>
<p>“Not everything is so different,” he whispered to her, even with no one else to hear. “I feel the same way dancing with you now as I did five years ago.”</p>
<p>Byleth withdrew from his shoulder with a shaky breath. Heat blossomed in her cheeks and she could feel Claude's heart stutter beneath her hand, even through layers of Duchal garments. It was good to know his body sang of fear, excitement, anticipation just as hers did. </p>
<p>"What way is that, exactly?" She pleaded, watching as the corners of his mouth dropped. </p>
<p>His mask was firm but no less tender. "Like I want to kiss you."</p>
<p>Byleth did not gasp when the words struck her only because she could not control herself long enough to draw in air. </p>
<p>She couldn't have guessed he'd ever wanted such a thing. Or perhaps she could have. Perhaps she wanted that too. Perhaps - she considered as Claude's heart continued it's beating beneath her touch - the empty place in her chest was responsible, in part, for that. It had felt muted before, but she was drawn into him that night. </p>
<p>Still. </p>
<p>"Something has changed," she said. Claude's brows raised, interest piqued as easily as that. "I don't know if I'd have let you kiss me back then. But now I know."</p>
<p>His smile returned, his face falling into something soft and comforting. No one had ever looked at her like that: wanting something, but moreso, desperate to give.  </p>
<p>"You want me to kiss you, my friend?"</p>
<p>The question needed no longer than a second for Byleth's response: a string of rapid, shallow nods.</p>
<p>The hand between the blades of her shoulder followed the curve of her spine to the small of her back. The one he'd used to lead their dance cupped her chin, raising her lips until they were a breath from his. </p>
<p>Byleth's fingers grasped, cold with the absence of his hand over her own, in his jacket. Something tightened, like a string about to snap or a coil pulled taut. </p>
<p>She felt the brush of skin over her top lip. Then he faltered. </p>
<p>In the same fluid motion she wanted so dearly for his lips to capture her own, he moved to press a kiss squarely to her cheek. He lingered there a moment, then another before pulling back, face flushed. </p>
<p>Byleth was panting, the tension recoiled without the satisfying spring of her wish realized. </p>
<p>"The war…" Claude had no other explanation. </p>
<p>Oh, yes. The war. </p>
<p>"If anything were to happen," he sighed. "I couldn't do that to you." </p>
<p>“Nor I you,” she said. </p>
<p>“I know,” Claude smiled at her the way he had before the first battle of this seemingly endless war, like he had at the Goddess Tower mere weeks before. “You’ve been thought dead twice now, haven’t you? But you always come back to me.”</p>
<p>He released her. The hall was cold without his arms around her. His bow and his taking of her hand once more in his to place a kiss to it helped to warm her just a little.</p>
<p>“Thank you for the dance,” he said. When he rose he offered up a bent arm for her to take. “Now, surely my illustrious Commander has plans for the afternoon.”</p>
<p>“Tea,” she sputtered out shyly. “With Lorenz in the garden.”</p>
<p>“Ah, Lorenz,” his voice revealed amusement at the prospect.. “I suppose I’ll just have to escort you to the garden and look very smug about it.”</p>
<p>She took his arm, a flush burning her face. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Byleth looked over her shoulder at the hall once more. </p>
<p>She supposed not everything that had changed was for the worse.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading guys! Look forward to a bunch more stuff coming out because, tbh, my brain is re-entering the "I will never stop" mode. </p>
<p>Also, did you know I have a twitter? (Subtle as hell plug) <a href="https://twitter.com/WritesAnam">@WritesAnam</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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